Eleanor Roosevelt’s Commitment to Israel Explored in ‘Refuge Must Be Given’

No longer constrained by the limitations of her role and her marriage, she spoke her mind, lending her name, presence, prestige, talents and energies to the post-war refugee crisis.

IThroughout “America and the Holocaust,” Ken Burns’, Lynn Novick’s and Sarah Botstein’s six-hour documentary,  one name kept being mentioned: Eleanor Roosevelt. In her column “My Day” as well as in public statements, multiple activities and private exchanges, Roosevelt was a fierce advocate of admitting Jewish refugees to the United States in the years when their admission was the difference between life and death. John Sears, who directed the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute in the 1980s and ’90s and co-edited Eleanor Roosevelt’s papers in 2007, has written an important book detailing her work on behalf of Jewish refugees during her years as first lady and then, perhaps more importantly and more effectively, in her career after the death of her husband on April 12, 1945. 

No longer constrained by the limitations of her role and her marriage, she spoke her mind, lending her name, presence, prestige, talents and energies to the post-war refugee crisis.

FDR was at best a cautious and lukewarm supporter of Zionism, but as his widow, Eleanor Roosevelt became a fierce advocate for the creation of the Jewish State.

FDR was at best a cautious and lukewarm supporter of Zionism, but as his widow, Eleanor Roosevelt became a fierce advocate for the creation of the Jewish State and was an integral part of the efforts 75 years ago this week to pass the November 29, 1947 United Nations Resolution supporting the establishment of a separate Jewish and Arab State in Mandate Palestine.

It wasn’t supposed to happen quite that way.

Judging from her childhood upbringing and the antisemitism that characterized elite, monied WASP society, Eleanor Roosevelt was a young antisemite. One can go through her early writings and family history and see a disdain for Jews shared by her social class, freely expressed, seldom condemned, and widely assumed. Jews were too pushy, too aggressive, unrefined, materialistic, or shabby and unkempt. Ironically, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s family was far more accepting of the Jews who were his father’s business colleagues as well as neighbors in Hyde Park; by the time FDR became Governor, Jews were an essential part of his coalition. As Yehuda Bauer, Israel’s preeminent Holocaust historian, put it, “antisemitism was against the society FDR was trying to build.” Well before her husband became President, Eleanor’s views had changed and as her social circle widened, including many Jews who were integral to Democratic politics and supportive of her values. As her experience broadened, she enjoyed enduring and close friendships with Jews, especially Jewish women.